Unique design, user friendly navigation links and usability are some of the ingredients which help you in making a successful website. There are different schools of thoughts regarding the philosophies which should be applied while coming up with a beautiful and profit making website but personally I recommend building a website which user may want to KISS ( Keep It Simple Stupid) as it is extremely SMART(Specific , Measurable , Attainable , Realistic , Timely).
World Wide Web has today become the hottest spot to promote your products and services and what better way to start your advertising then coming up with that perfect website. So let us uncover some hidden truths about web design that will help us in finding the perfect recipe for a high traffic pulling website:
Leave Guess Work for Solving Puzzles
You should congratulate yourself for the increased number of visitors getting attracted towards your website but what is the amount of time they spent browsing through your content? Do they revisit your website? Do fill up the referrals and invite their friends, families and business associates to visit your website? All these are the key indicators pointing towards the success of your website. A visitor is usually on your webpage to get some useful information and if his appetite for knowledge is not sated he is unlikely to revisit your webpage. If you want to redirect a person, all the links should work properly. There should be a site map to help a person in case he in unable to locate the information he is searching for, if you leave the person in maze you are likely to use a potential customer. So rule number one, take your visitors directly to the information they are looking for with right links, self explanatory informative content leaving no scope for ambiguities.
Get , Set & You Are Ready to Go
So you want a user to use your software or download your e-book the trick to keep your customer happy is not making him go through a lengthy registration process which is enough to test his patience. Your web design should not include some lengthy login forms which even a first time visitor has to fill just for browsing through your services and to understand what’s up for offer. Let the visitor get his share of information without the unnecessary hassle of divulging their personal information. Ease of browsing the content without sharing their personal data and absence of those tens of annoying pop ups are the second important rule to be followed in web design.
Gain Users’ Attention
A picture speaks a thousand words and should be included along with your content to gain users focus towards what you are trying to sell. But again a word of caution avoid using unnecessary images and heavy flash work which though attractive takes a lot of bandwidth and long time to load. Use eye catching graphics, patterns and images which are appealing and also help in generating curiosity in the mind of the users about how to get more information. Also maintain a proper flow so that user is redirected to the next page without applying much thought. Therefore in a nut shell the third rule for web design is to have a proper site orientation, capturing users’ focus and attention which leads to total customer satisfaction.
Clear Vision Easy Decision
Well would you like to use an easy step wise guide that will help you solve your problem? Well the fourth important rule of web design is the clear listing of all the features before the users that will help them in making a quick decision. Guiding your visitors through your website in a simple and friendly manner while exposing them to the treasures you have in store for you will help you in scoring those important brownie points. Use a clear cut layout in appealing colors with a systematic listing of all your features helps the user gain a better understanding of what benefits they can get from your business. So use a web design that presents content in a manner that is well understood by your site visitors.
Pen is Mightier Than a Sword
Well yes marketing is nothing but the war of words and to win this war it is essential to come up with effective content. Remember you have precisely say about 30 seconds to catch the attention of the user. Generally a visitor scans and not reads through the blocks of content written in a flowery language. So rule number five is coming up with excellent web content. Simple, short and sweet sentences effectively communicate what you want to say. Try using bullets and numbers with bold headings which a user can read easily and get a gist of what you are trying to say and if it matches with what they are looking you are a winner.
KISS web design
A clean page listing down what you had been looking for with out the unnecessary clutter of useless text and the noticeable absence of any annoying advertisements on the webpage is one of the best design practices. A simple layout with clear areas for navigation, header, footer and the content body will make the user appreciate your site more even if it is in another international language as french. Complex layout will make the content less digestible to the user as complex structures are difficult to scan, understand and to even work with. You can make your web design simpler by following Simon’s law of using hierarchical structure while presenting data which helps in reducing complexity making content easy to perceive.
Credibility is Reassuring
Would you like to visit the restaurant which has received rave reviews? Same is the case with the web site. An excellent web design technique would be to promote your credentials to the potential customers in form of amazing testimonials which you had received from your previous customers or by offering money back guarantee or warranty on the product that you are selling. Also if you want to create an e-commerce website ensure that you use a secure payment gateway that will safeguard the credit card information of your clients. Provide your contact information, email address and phone numbers on your web page that will make it easier for your potential clients to contact you.
Reach Out & Connect
Using proper keywords so that your website is search engine optimized and gets a higher ranking during search results is another web design technique which is helpful in popularizing your business by generating more traffic. But there are several other ways that can be used for promoting products like providing reciprocal links, coming out with your company’s newsletter and yes last but not the least online directories. Besides these networking is a great way to promote yourself, so start discussion boards, offer advices and yes ask customers to write back to you with their expectations which will help you in coming with solutions that are an exact match to customers’ expectations.
Nothing is Permanent But the Change
Continuous improvement is the key to success. Remember a good web site is never complete. To keep the visitors attracted towards your website keep on updating the content of your website if not daily then at least twice a week. Try adding new features, new pages and some special feeds which will tempt the users in revisiting your site. So rule number nine of web design is change, change layout, change content, add new features to keep users’ interest intact.
Test Away Bugs
Taking help of the above design principles you have built a great site but keep the tenth most important commandment in mind before launching your website- thoroughly test your website. Keep performing unit testing of your website whenever you complete one feature. Errors that are detected at the earlier cycle of web designing and development are often easier and cheaper to correct. Repeated testing will help you detecting and solving bugs that had remained undetected during previous rounds. A web develop should never test his own code and he will be unable to detect the flaws in his own web design. Ask your colleague or a member of the testing team to perform usability testing which will help in presenting your users with a problem free website.
Power packed with these rules of web design go ahead and design a unique and user friendly website which will soon be ranked high by all the search engines.
Filed under: Website design
The latest report by web guru Jacob Neilson reveals that people have become more impatient and need quicker results while searching for a keyword on web. Another interesting fact is that now 75% people prefer to directly reach the page of their interest rather then navigating through the links from the home page. So if you feel attracted toward the websites of the entertainment firms with flashy designs and want to create a promotional website using same design, think again as the main traffic pullers are simple websites which are easier to load and navigate. To understand why Keep It Simple Stupid philosophy should be applied while creating a website.
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Faster Loading of Web Pages
Imagine a user having 56k or a modem which is still slower trying to access your page which is of 12kb size. As compared to a high speed broadband connection which may take only a fraction of second to load your page , user with a slower modem will require at least 4-5 second to view your first page. The loading time will increase with the addition of flash images and other graphics. You may make your site attractive by heavy use of flash but will it be user friendly is the question you need to ask. Therefore applying the principal of KISS design a simple website with a lighter load it will greatly reduce the transmission time which in turn will favorably affect the transmission speed making your site attractive to the users.
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Simple Attractive Content = More Buyers
The main reason which attracts a visitor to your website is the search for information. The website content should be simple and easy to understand. Another important factor which can add to your websites success would be the way the data is presented: Are there too many tables, is the font size too big or too small, what is the color of the background and your font color, all these factors makes the text easy or difficult to read. What is needed to make a website success is not the clutter of unnecessary graphics and animations but the right content that can promote effective communication. Word of advice: create a simple website with clear layout, right font and simple sentences and you have a winner.
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Reduces Number of Clicks
Keeping the website simple also results in ease of navigation which is one of the important factors a user looks for while browsing the content. What can be more frustrating then searching the webpage for the correct link? Therefore it is always advisable to place the links at the top or on the left hand frame of the webpage for easy visibility. Also the success of the website is also defined by the fact if the user is able to find its content within three clicks or three drill downs. It becomes all the more crucial for you to have a simple website if you are selling a product online. Nothing pleases customer more then finding the information they are searching for effortlessly. So have a clean simple layout with links placed at the same location on the home as well as inner pages to make your site user friendly and easy to navigate.
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Ease of Use & Creation
One of the most important rules of marketing is “Grandma’s” Rule. If an elderly person with not much acquaintance of the latest technology is able to make a successful purchase through your website then your efforts are entirely successful. Therefore see that your website is not crowded with useless data and filled with ads which will confuse the visitor with the promotional offers and distract him from making the actual purchase. A website should be easy to access, easy to register with and should support all the major credit cards for making payments. Simplifying the look of your website will not make it more appealing but the enjoyable shopping experience will make you earn a regular customer. Also you can take advantage of one of the many simple website software available in the market to create your own simple HTML website thus saving on both the cost and the time in launching your website.
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Search Engine Optimization Management
Do you know that search engines are able to process simple HTML sites and their contents faster then the contents of the complex sites? It will also be interesting to learn that the sites containing a large amount of graphics and frames gets eliminated while search is being performed using keywords in search engines like Google. This will result in lower ranking of your web page as compared to simple HTML websites, in turn resulting in decrease in number of visitors. Therefore for proper SEO your best bet will be creation of a simple HTML website with proper keywords inserted in meta-tags at appropriate places which will increase in higher ranking of your website when a search is performed using a particular keyword.
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Lesser Options More Visitors
What makes Apple’s website one of the most popular online marketing destination in the world? Well the answer is minimalist design of the apple’s home page and inner pages. The inner pages of the Apple’s website only list one product per page with a simple header and informational links providing information about the same product. No unrelated products on side bars, no unnecessary clutter to confuse the buyer just plain description about the product helps in making user a faster choice. Hence always go for a simple design with only relevant information which will help in eliminating distraction thus helping to streamline the buyers’ thoughts towards making a purchase.
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Browser compatible and Bandwidth efficient
Another advantage of having a simple design is that a simple HTML website is usually browser compatible. Different browsers like IE , firefox , opera or safari distorts and displays the columns , tables , formatting tags and embedded images differently. Therefore while designing a complex website lot of emphasis has to be laid to make the web page browser compatible. Also lots of formatting and images on the web page requires a lot of bandwidth proving to be very costly. Keep the website simple not only proves to be bandwidth efficient but can let multiple users enjoy your site simultaneously.
For some KISS may mean “Keep it Simple Stupid, for others it may mean “Keep it short & simple” but for us KISS refers to “Keep It Simple (for) Success. So apply KISS to website design and get a user friendly, bandwidth efficient, search engine optimized websites attracting more number of visitors resulting in more business.
